


Vexing

by DistractedSiren



Series: Bylaude One-Shots [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F!Byleth, F/M, One-Shot, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Time Skip, claude is not here for it, mild jealousy, sylvain starts shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 05:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20688152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistractedSiren/pseuds/DistractedSiren
Summary: “And a hush falls over the crowd,” Sylvain says as he glances around at everyone. “Yeesh. Was it something I said?”( AKA: Sylvain likes to stir the pot, and Claude is not amused )





	Vexing

**Author's Note:**

> I started thinking about how pissed Claude would be if someone like Sylvain tried to call Byleth "Teach." Then this happened.

At first, Claude isn’t sure if Sylvain is trying to start shit with him or if he’s just somewhat annoying all of the time. He’s willing to bet it’s option number two—especially since most of the other students seem to find the redhead annoying to one degree or another—but Sylvain himself wrecks that assumption with one decisive action.

It’s the end of class on a Friday early in the month. Just a normal afternoon. Most of the Deer seem to be tuned out, probably planning trips into town or imagining how good it will be to sleep in the next morning. And then Sylvain turns in his chair to give Claude a shit-eating smirk.

“Hey, Teach…doing anything special this weekend?” he asks, turning innocent brown eyes to their professor like he doesn’t know he’s just deliberately committed a serious Golden Deer _faux pas_. The room falls completely silent—even Byleth is staring at him like she isn’t sure she heard him right. And Claude? Claude snaps his quill right in half, though he tries to cover his annoyance with a look of mild amusement.

“And a hush falls over the crowd,” Sylvain says as he glances around at everyone. “Yeesh. Was it something I said?”

“We don’t call her that. Nobody calls her that,” Hilda informs him, shooting a glance Claude’s way to gauge his response.

Sylvain jerks a thumb in Claude’s direction. “He does.”

“That’s different,” she replies, sounding uncertain. It _is_ different, but no one really knows how to explain why. There’s just something about it that’s off-limits to everyone else. It’s one of those unspoken rules that just _is_ what it is, for no other reason than because anything else feels wrong.

“Well, I bet I could come up with my own pet name for you over dinner tomorrow,” Sylvain purrs to Byleth with a smile he probably imagines is charming. It just makes Claude even more desperate to take the guy down a peg. No poison, though…if he doses the guy with something, he’ll instantly become the prime suspect. He’ll have to come up with something a bit more subtle…

“I don’t think you’ll be available tomorrow night,” Byleth says mildly. Sylvain smiles wider, lifting an eyebrow.

“I won’t? I’m sure I could reschedule anything that would hinder me from spending the evening with a goddess such as yourself.”

“I don’t believe Seteth reschedules his seminars on sexual harassment. It starts at seven.” She taps her lecture notes straight and pins Sylvain with that dead-eyed stare that freezes battle-hardened men in their tracks. “And if I don’t see a marked improvement in your behavior toward students of every gender, you’ll be back there every Saturday until graduation.”

Claude grins to himself. Gods, she’s amazing. It’s all just so…efficient. Sylvain immediately laughs it off and drops his eyes back to his notes, and Claude leans back in his chair and savors the moment.

* * *

But it doesn’t end there.

The invitations to tea, to lunch, to dinner…they’re endless. He refrains—barely—from making outright innuendoes, but he always seems to turn the charm on extra high when Claude is in earshot. It’s like the guy wants to get punched. Or poisoned. Or dropped from the back of a wyvern at a questionably safe cruising altitude.

Worse, it’s not like Sylvain is doing it for the Teach’s benefit, or even his own. His real interest seems to be annoying Claude to the point of violence. And it shouldn’t even have worked, that’s the most maddening part. Claude had been so sure that winning Byleth’s sympathies was just a convenient way to skip a few steps on the way to his dreams that he hadn’t even realized she’d become personally, privately important to him.

Thanks to Sylvain, he’s now painfully aware of that fact. And he’s in no danger of forgetting, because the annual ball is just a few evenings away and the redhead is acting out worse than ever.

“C’mon Professor, we’d have a great time together. I mean sure, you’re my teacher, but I’m eighteen and you’re—twenty? Twenty-one? No one would be too scandalized.” It’s Sylvain again, Claude hears him just before he enters the library and sees the two of them standing near one of the reading desks.

“Sylvain, I was serious about sending you to Seteth for the rest of the year. This isn’t funny.” Byleth’s voice is extremely cool.

Claude is in full agreement. He pretends that he’s minding his own business however, staying as far away as the room will allow and sticking his nose in a stack of books about—economics. _Ugh_.

“At least sneak away to the Goddess Tower with me. You know the legend. I know what I’ll be wishing for,” Sylvain adds with a wink.

_I’ll be wishing you fall out of the window_, Claude thinks with malice. Byleth simply tells the other that she is going to have to speak with Lady Rhea and the rest of the staff about his behavior. Then she strides out of the library without another word.

“Jealous, von Riegan?” Sylvain asks casually when she’s gone, seemingly unperturbed by the idea of Garreg Mach’s prudish staff coming together to throw the proverbial book at him.

Claude tosses him an effortless smile. “Not in the slightest, Gautier. When I pursue a woman, it’s enjoyable for both parties.”

“You’re a blushing virgin and we both know it,” Sylvain replies with a laugh. “Yeah, you come off smooth and confident, but if someone like the Professor ever seriously came on to you, you’d panic and disappear. That’s just your MO, my friend. It’s a little sad for _you_, but _I’m_ not afraid to take chances.”

“Sounds to me like you’re running out of them, at least where Teach is concerned.” Claude’s smile has gone savage. Sylvain’s own easy grin never slackens.

“Oh, I really don’t think _I’m_ the one running out of chances, friend.”

Claude starts to ask him just what the hell that’s supposed to mean, but before he can, Rhea and Seteth walk in and request Sylvain’s presence for a ‘discussion.’

He hates to admit it, but wondering about that cryptic statement keeps him awake later than it should.

* * *

Sylvain is a bit more muted the last two days before the ball, but right before class lets out so everyone can get ready for the big night, he stops in the door to the classroom and turns to Teach one last time.

“Don’t forget. I’ll meet you at the Goddess Tower tonight. Then we can both make our wish with our whole hearts, and Sothis will make sure it comes true,” he says. Byleth only stares at him, as dead eyed as she was when she fought the bandits outside of Remire the night she’d saved Claude and their royal highnesses. Claude brushes past both of them, and he thinks maybe he feels Byleth’s eyes following him for a second, but he doesn’t look back. This little show Sylvain keeps putting on is getting old, and anyway, he’ll see her at the dance.

* * *

Claude honestly doesn’t know what he’s doing. If anyone were to ask him, he wouldn’t even have a lie ready. He’s ninety-nine percent certain that Byleth won’t come to the Goddess Tower at all, and _especially_ not to meet Sylvain of all people…but he finds himself climbing the stairs to the top anyway.

It’s just…what if she does come? What if Sylvain has actually convinced her to give him the time of day somehow?

And yeah, okay—he knows that if they both show up, eavesdropping on their little tryst is not the best look. But he tells himself he’s just looking out for her. She’s a good teacher. He doesn’t want her to get fired because Sylvain’s good looking and insanely persistent.

He’s relieved when no one is at the top of the tower when he gets there. But since he’s up there already and he has no real desire to return to the ball, he decides to stay for a few minutes and take in the night sky. The lights of the town twinkle below him, but they don’t hold a candle to the show put on by the stars dancing above. His eyes trace constellations he memorized as a child, and just for fun he tries to find new ones, connecting the diamond dots above him into increasingly complicated shapes.

He doesn’t realize he isn’t alone right away. Sneaking up on him is hard, but somehow she manages. And when he notices her presence at last, she’s already halfway across the room on her way toward him, her eyes searching out what he’s found so fascinating.

“Teach,” he says softly. “I…”

“I couldn’t find you at the ball,” she explains, stopping at his side and drinking in the view just as he had. “I didn’t think you’d come here, but I found myself climbing the steps anyway.”

_Me…she came here for me…_

His heart is doing somersaults in his chest. He tries to ignore it as they stand side by side in companionable silence. Before long, he’s pointing up to his new constellations, teaching her how to trace the lines he’s just created into new patterns in a familiar tableau.

They stay for a while, just chatting easily together. He forgets to worry about Sylvain. He forgets to see her as useful, as a tool to help him fight years of church-sanctioned prejudice. She’s just Teach, and he’s just Claude, and it’s really…nice.

When they do finally part ways for the evening, she stops at the top of the stairs and looks back at him.

“Do you have a wish, Claude? I’m told tonight is the night.”

“I do,” he admits. “And…it’s a lot to ask. It might even be impossible. But maybe with your help…it’s not so out of reach after all.”

She nods. “I’ll help you.”

“Just like that?” he asks, more than a little surprised. “Without even knowing what it is I want you to do?”

She lifts one shoulder in a little shrug. “I’ll always help you, Claude,” she says again, like it’s just one of the universe’s truths. Undeniable. Constant.

“Okay,” he says, feeling like someone has just lifted half a continent off of his shoulders. “Okay…let’s wish.”

* * *

A few minutes later, after Byleth is long gone, they watch Claude slip out of the Goddess Tower and head toward his dorm room. Hilda sighs happily and doesn’t even complain when she slaps a small purse of gold into Sylvain’s open palm.

“You know, Claude prides himself on being a schemer, but he had no idea you were playing him for weeks.”

Sylvain laughs. “Well, I can’t blame the guy for being distracted when the Professor’s around. But this was way too easy.”

“Should we make another bet?”

“What did you have in mind?” he asks. Hilda’s eyes gleam playfully in the dark.

“Date of their first kiss?”

“You’re on.”


End file.
